Program Officer of the Civic Response Ghana, Elvis Oppong Mensah has insisted that it is totally unsafe for one to undertake agricultural activities on reclaimed mined lands.
According to him, mercury and other chemicals used in mining seep into the soil and contaminates food crops planted on such lands. “Even if they are reclaimed, there are not safe for farming food crops”.
Elvis disclosed that research from the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) proved mined lands can never be reclaimed to their former states. “There is no way such lands can be reclaimed to their former state and it is way more dangerous to use the land for agricultural activities”, he reiterated.
Speaking in an interview on the Fact Sheet show hosted by Samuel Eshun and aired on e.TV Ghana, Elvis motioned that the mercury used in polishing gold is mixed with the soil, contaminating it. “At best, the only thing you can use such a mercury infested land for is a tree plantation because using it for farming food crops is dangerous”.
He urged the the Ghanaian populace to do a cost benefit analysis between mining and farming to see which has a bigger potential to grow the country’s economy.
On his authority, COCOBOD was recently moved from under the Ministry of Finance to the Ministry of Agriculture “and this proves that cocoa is of a huge economic value to the country. When the cedi is depreciating, we also look at cocoa to revive it and now we are making the land compete with mining”, he expressed sadly.
The Civic Response Program Manager asserted that agriculture employs more than 60 percent of the country’s workforce with a lesser number being employed under mining. “Let us look at both and make the smart decision”.
He disclosed that when deep mining was being practised initially, the land was still safe for cultivating food crops “but with surface mining now the trend, we need to start thinking through these options, do we need surface mining or agriculture?”.
Mining activities in Ghana have raised huge concerns amongst the populace as the menace is now destroying the environment, especially water bodies and land resources. With the populace raising oppositions to these mining practices, the government is taking critical steps to address the menace.
By: Joel Sanco
